State pays in abuse case

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

The Hawai'i Supreme Court has ruled that the state Department of Education must pay an additional $860,000 to two former Mokapu Elementary School students and their parents who sued the state for negligence after a teacher sexually molested the two girls in the early 1990s.

In a decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court justices found that Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna concluded incorrectly in March 2000 that the Department of Education was responsible for paying 49 percent of the $1.76 million judgment she awarded the two girls and their parents.

McKenna had ruled that former Mokapu Elementary teacher Lawrence Norton was responsible for the other 51 percent.

In its ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court found the state should pay the full settlement, because the Department of Education had failed adequately to investigate sexual abuse allegations against Norton.

"We hold that the Circuit Court erred in apportioning liability between the DOE and Norton, and therefore that the DOE is liable to the plaintiffs for the full extent of their damages," the justices said in a 106-page opinion.

McKenna made her calculation at the end of a civil trial. Norton filed a petition in federal bankruptcy court. McKenna said a judgment could not be entered against him and refused to order the state to pay his 51 percent share of the damages.

Norton, 61, had been a fourth-grade teacher at the elementary school, well-liked and supported by the school administration until multiple sexual assault allegations surfaced against him.

In 1991, he was accused of fondling a student's breast, but was acquitted two years later and allowed to continue teaching at Mokapu Elementary, a public school at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i at Kane'ohe. He was later acquitted of assaulting the two girls whose parents filed the civil lawsuit.

In January 1995, he was charged with fondling another student's breast. He was found guilty after pleading no contest, fired and sentenced in 1996 to a year in jail.

At that sentencing, it was disclosed that he had been diagnosed as a pedophile. City prosecutors said Norton had admitted to molesting two dozen children.

In her March 2000 ruling, McKenna found the state liable for damages because the Department of Education had not adequately investigated the allegations against him.